


Marks on Our Skin

by SilverOwlCity



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Not Beta Read, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 13:30:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20471816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverOwlCity/pseuds/SilverOwlCity
Summary: Soulmate AU wherein marks appear depicting things important to you and your soulmate.





	Marks on Our Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.

She’s ten when her first mark shows up. It’s a silver snake that wraps around her left bicep, head resting peacefully atop her shoulder.

Hermione adores the mark – thinks it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. Her parents are wary of what it might mean.

Her next mark appears at eleven and she knows it belongs to her. This time, she feels the burn as a small orange cat etches itself behind her right ear. She smiles and pets her new kitten, Crookshanks, on the head.

Every mark after that burns on her skin.

At fifteen, a stack of books appears on the back of her right hand. Each book is a different color, the color spectrum bringing her hand to life. Two days later, an ink well and quill burn themselves on her right calf.

The only mark at sixteen is the polaroid she falls in love with.

Eighteen brings quite a few marks with it.

A barn owl appears on her right foot, an emerald clasped in its talons. Next to it, a lion sleeps in contentment.

A row of silver and gold flowers blooms across her shoulder blades. They transition from roses to calla lilies slowly with tulips sitting in the middle.

A dragon wraps itself around her bellybutton, scarlet flames spewing from its maw. Its light blue scales glint from the fire light.

A fireplace appears on her left collarbone after a summer spent as a camp counselor.

The numbers 03 appear on her left pinky.

These are the last marks she gets.

For years she wonders what her soulmate might be like. If the quill and ink mean they love writing or just the imagery of it. She wonders why her first mark was a snake – why a silver one at that.

Two weeks before her twentieth birthday, something happens.

It starts as a tingle in her feet and grows until her entire body is vibrating. After a few minutes, everything _burns_. She doesn’t remember screaming, but she’s told she does.

Everything is numb for a few days. She spends her time staring at the pictures on her wall. It’s a collage of all her soul marks – those she can see and those she can’t.

Hundreds of images of the same marks displayed over and over on the wall in front of her. The first few are regular pictures printed at a shop while the rest are polaroids.

Every image is ever so slightly different from the last. They document how her marks changed month by month. Their evolution is documented clearly.

It shows how the snake grows from just one ring to five around her arm. When its eyes begin to close and when stay that way.

How Crookshanks grows to cover the back of her neck.

The books change colors, get thicker, and change in number as her interests in reading change, but never waiver. The quill grows lighter from black to green the more the ink well is emptied.

The polaroid stays mostly the same, switching between having a picture in the different phases of printing and not.

The owl, for the little while she had it, changes the jewel in its talons. The lion’s pelt changes to darker shades the longer she’s away from the school whose mascot is emblazoned on her skin. Her mother says it may have eventually been just a shadow of the animal.

The flowers that bloomed with the seasons mock her in their garland. The roses beam and the tulips glow out of the picture. The calla lilies are reminiscent of a dream. She wishes the dream wouldn’t end.

The dragon’s scales slowly become darker and darker until they’re a royal blue with sky blue edges. Its wings slowly unfurl as if solidifying its existence.

Her fireplace changes shades and sizes almost every day. There are dark orange sparks and yellow blazes spattered across the wall before her.

Her final mark, the number, goes between black, green, and silver over and over. Sometimes, the numbers are worn away in places and others, they’re precise and sharp. Their font varies from day to day.

She remembers the day she received her first mark when she was ten. She remembers the day every mark on her skin disappears.

The skin is darker where the images sat, but there are no distinct shadows or silhouettes. They just look like . . . birth marks.

She feels both numb and in excruciating pain at once.

Harry and Ron exchange worried glances and rub their matching marks. Ginny soothes her as much as she can, nervously checking that her own marks are still there.

For a long time, she’s treated like she’ll break.

She doesn’t mind. She doesn’t think they’re wrong.

And they’re not. She does break and the world falls out beneath her.

She’s in a bookstore when something catches her eye. A beautiful, silver-eyed blue dragon sits on the cover of a book. She feels drawn to it.

_Hogwarts: Land of Dragons_ by Draco Malfoy.

She doesn’t read the description, but buys it. She leaves without a second thought.

The moment she’s alone in her room, she opens the book and reads.

She loves the land painted before her. The beautiful blue dragon, Ravenclaw, is accompanied by her rider Rowena and a whole cast of other dragons and riders. It’s a beautiful tragedy laid out before her.

One dragon and his rider are killed in the end, dying to set the rest free. She sheds a tear as Slytherin and Salazar breathe their last.

At the back of the book it a dedication.

_To my soulmate, wherever you may be. You’ve left beautiful marks on my life._

Her heart aches reading the words, but it breaks when she turns to the next page.

It’s an about the author page. Above the header, though, is a picture. The image perfectly matches the dragon the had been burned on her skin.

The page lists his death as being only a month or so prior to the release of the book. The accident was the same day that her marks had disappeared.

She feels her soul wrench apart as she stares at his picture.

“Hello, Draco,” she greets softly. Her eyes are watering. “I think . . . I think I’m your soulmate. My name is Hermione Granger.”

She places a hand on his picture and whispers, “It’s a shame we never met.”

As she closes the book, a single line of text catches her eye.

_“A shame indeed, my heart. A shame indeed.”_


End file.
